"You talk too much." The words come out steadier than I feel. "If you're going to destroy me, get on with it. But don't expect me to beg. I've spent five years refusing to give you that satisfaction, and I'm not about to start now."
Something flickers in Victor's pale eyes. Surprise, maybe. Or a grudging respect that makes my skin crawl.
"Defiance." He releases my mother and turns back to face me. "I've always admired that about you, Katriana. It's what makes breaking you so appealing."
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a phone. My phone, I realize. The one Drake gave me. The one with his contact at the top of my favorites list.
"Would you like to call him?" Victor's smile is serpentine. "Say goodbye? I'm sure his voicemail would love to hear your last words."
He is taunting me. Twisting the knife. Savoring every moment of my suffering like a fine wine.
But his arrogance is his weakness. His need to monologue, to explain, to make me understand exactly how thoroughly he has won. Every second he spends talking is a second I am not being loaded into a van. A second my family is not being separated. A second Drake might still be alive, might still be coming, might still be the rescue I cannot let myself hope for.
I need to keep him talking.
"How did you know?" I let my voice crack slightly, playing into the fear he expects. "About the airport. About my trip. About any of it."
"Your boyfriend's brother was quite forthcoming once I made him the right offer." Victor settles back into his chair, clearly pleased by the question. "Jonah has harbored resentment toward Drake for years. All it took was a little push in the right direction. A promise of revenge, of money, of the chance to prove himself better than the brother who always overshadowed him. He’s got a mole in Redthorne. It was very helpful."
There is a limited number of people who know about my trip. Persia, the men of course. Then there is Sienna, Damaris and then me.
My stomach drops. There’s only one name in that group of people it could be.
"What did Jonah promise Sienna in return?"
“That her family won’t suffer the same fate as yours. She has a sister too. Lies, of course, but it worked.”
I swallow thickly. Acid burns the back of my throat with the implications of his words.
“How did Jonah convince Drake to go to him?”
He dismisses my question and continues.
"While Drake was walking into an ambush at a warehouse, my men were collecting you from the airport. Elegant, don't you think? The Moses brothers destroy each other while I reclaim what was always mine."
"I was never yours."
"You've been mine since the day your father signed his name to my contract." Victor's voice hardens. "Your debt. Your labor. Your body. All of it was promised to me long before you were old enough to understand what you owed. I've simply been waiting for the right moment to collect."
My father. The man I loved, the man who read me bedtime stories and made me believe in happy endings, the man whose gambling addiction destroyed our family in ways I am only now beginning to understand. He sold me to a monster before I even knew monsters existed.
I hear what he is not saying. “My father used me as collateral for his loan.” My voice goes flat.
“Bingo.”
The betrayal cuts deeper than Victor's slap. Deeper than Jonah's gun in my face. Deeper than anything I have felt since the day I found my father's body surrounded by betting slips and loan documents.
But I cannot afford to fall apart. Not now. Not with my mother and sister watching. Not with Drake possibly fighting for his life somewhere in this city.
"So how exactly does this work?" I force the question through numb lips. "You drag us to one of your establishments and put us to work? Force us to service your clients until we're too broken to be useful anymore?"
"Something like that." Victor tilts his head, studying me like a specimen under glass. "Although I have special plans for you, Katriana. You've embarrassed me. Made me look weak in front of people who matter. That requires a more personal touch."
He rises and moves toward me, his footsteps slow and deliberate. My body tenses against the ropes, every muscle screaming for flight even though I have nowhere to go.
"I'm going to break you myself." His voice drops to barely above a whisper, intimate and obscene. "Personally. Over weeks, perhaps months. I'm going to strip away everything you think you are until nothing remains but a hollow shell that does exactly what it's told." His hand brushes my cheek, and I jerk away from the touch. "And then, when you're finally empty, I'm going to sell you to the highest bidder and use the money to buy something pretty for my wife."
The casual cruelty of it steals my breath. Not just the threat itself, but the matter-of-fact way he delivers it. Like destroyingwomen is just another business transaction. Like my humanity is nothing more than a line item on a ledger.
